Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Getting Around Southeast Seatt... | Streets Is Watching »

Friday, May 9, 2008

This Weekend at the Movies

posted by on May 9 at 17:24 PM

Fast version! I’m slammed with preparing our exhaustive SIFF guide for you guys, so I don’t have a ton of time. But here’s what’s going on in the film section this week:

Andrew Wright reviews Speed Racer (“Freakishly perverse, this is an immense, Otter Pop–colored nostalgic thing that expends so much energy replicating every last widget and geegaw from its source that it forgets to be, you know, fun”).

Bradley Steinbacher reviews Son of Rambow, finally arriving in theaters after serving as the opening night film of SIFF 2007 (“In Garth Jennings’s admirable Son of Rambow, two fatherless boys—the sheltered and devoutly religious Will and the bullying and all-but-abandoned Lee—bond while trying to remake First Blood for a BBC competition, encountering near-death experiences, religious interference, and très cool French exchange students along the way. For both boys, the Stallone flick offers an escape—Will finds a dream of a father; Lee sees a chance to impress the brother who ignores him—and while they shoot their little remake, Son of Rambow positively soars”).

I review Shotgun Stories, also a SIFF 2007 alum (“The greatest virtue of Shotgun Stories, which was coproduced by David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls), is the sun-baked cinematography by Adam Stone. From bursting cotton bolls to wan fish farms, the images are beautiful and nearly worth the price of admission. At the same time, their meditative pace exerts a dangerous inertia on the rest of the film”).

Charles Mudede reviews Redbelt (“The film as a whole is not satisfying. The society of the spectacle turns out to be too simple, too obvious, too easy a challenge for a man who draws all his moral strength from the age of the heroes”) and interviews Chiwetel Ejiofor.

And Paul Constant assesses My Brother Is an Only Child (“exactly the kind of stereotypical foreign movie at which casual American filmgoers turn up their noses”).

Bradley Steinbacher reviews What Happens in Vegas… (“Only after the end credits start to roll is there a moment of inspired lunacy—and it’s not nearly enough to make up for the drudgery that preceded it. In a word: ugh”).

Lindy West writes about the challenge of going to the Valley 6 Drive-In with a platonic buddy.

For all your movie times needs: use us. Hidden away in Limited Runs this week are such offerings as the first ever French and Francophone Film Festival at the UW (with fancy 35 mm prints care of the French gov’t) and Translations, Seattle’s annual Transgender Film Festival. The Varsity has French slasher film Frontier(s) and the French Bond spoof OSS 117—both totally worth checking out. At Grand Illusion, prisoners meditate in Dhamma Brothers and GI Joe Stop-Motion Film Festival. And SIFF Cinema keeps truckin’ out the classics in the United Artists series.

RSS icon Comments

1

I recommend Son of Rambow - audience fave at SIFF - and OSS-117 - same.

Now to dive into the printed SIFF calendar and discuss with friends which movies we want to see and when ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 9, 2008 5:29 PM
2

Shotgun Stories was one of my favourite films from SIFF 2007. Highly recommended, especially if you're into the whole david gordon green vibe. Too bad it doesn't seem to be getting a wider release, but oh well, at least it's here again.

Posted by stinkbug | May 9, 2008 5:31 PM
3

Just tell me...should I get baked and go see Speed Racer at IMAX or not?

What the hell do you think I read your magazine for? Sheesh.

Posted by Matthew | May 9, 2008 5:59 PM
4

Matthew,
I would think that the trailer already answered your question with a definite "yes."

And you probably read the "magazine" for Savage Love, just like everyone else.

Posted by donte | May 9, 2008 8:06 PM
5

I think getting baked might make Speed Racer at the IMAX be really really fun!

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 9, 2008 9:01 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).